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" People in Ireland take in the whole song. After a long history of great singers and songwriters and poets, they are able to consume the entire song - not just the external; they go inside. "

Mary Gauthier

History

Long

People

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" A song is an emotional lightning bolt - a good one, anyway. "

" I did not know that if a member of a family serves, the whole family serves. I did not know that the spouses of our service members carry such a heavy load. "

" I write to make some sense of things that confuse me. The mechanics of my own heart are the most confusing I know about - and don't know about - and other people's are a bit confusing, too. "

Mary Gauthier

Heart

Know

" Art, when done well, creates empathy. "

" As a songwriter, I was always mining my own depths, which were filled with confusion and darkness. "

" In a lot of ways, songwriting helped save my life. "

" I think each veteran's soul has something that it needs to say. I know from my own personal traumas, it's very hard to know what that is. But when I'm watching someone else struggle, it's not as confusing for me, 'cause it's not my struggle, so I can help identify that. "

" When I became a songwriter, it was out of some sort of desperation. I needed to create something. I had to latch on to something, and the guitar was what I grabbed. "

" I teach songwriting a lot, and I always tell my students, 'You gotta write the little songs sometimes to get to the next big song in the chute.' You gotta write 'em to get to it. You never know what's going to be a little song or a big song. "

" There's such a thing as a tribe - and family of choice. "

" I think we're very much in a mystery here in this life and that artists try to pierce the mystery with their art. "

" What I was told is that I was born to a mother who was a Catholic, while her boyfriend was not. They couldn't get married unless they put me up for adoption. "

Mary Gauthier

Her

Mother

" I think Bob Dylan showed us that songs can rise to the level of literature, and he proved it over and over again. That's why they keep trying to get him a Nobel Prize for literature: because there is no Nobel Prize for songwriting. "

" I feel as though I came to music with something to say. It wasn't like that when I was younger. I didn't have the ability to articulate what it was I wanted to say. "

" The belief when your mother gives you away is that there's something deeply wrong. Mothers don't give babies away. There's something wrong with me, something unlovable, something seriously flawed in me. It's a fundamental thing; it's precognitive. You feel it rather than think it. How could you not? "

" There's an ocean of misunderstanding. It's called the civilian-military divide. I had a lot to learn about our military - who they are, what burdens they carry. "

" Music had always been a kind of anchor for me. But I didn't write my first song till I was 35. "

" They send women into combat without being prepared for women in combat. The men resented them being there, and it was just very, very difficult for them, and they had to fight for the respect they were earning. And that's all they want is the respect. "

" What I'm finding is there's an awful lot about adoption and relinquishment and the complicated nature of family that we, as human beings, haven't been able to have a real discussion about yet without a lot of censorship. "

" Creating something beautiful out of pain helps ease the pain. So, that's kind of how I got to songwriting - quite honestly out of desperation. "

" In my early years, I couldn't find a community. I couldn't find anybody like me. I felt so isolated. There was nothing but shame and loneliness. "

Mary Gauthier

Early

Loneliness

" I haven't been in the military, but I've known my share of pain. It allows me to sit with someone who's struggling and not be afraid. "

Mary Gauthier

Afraid

Someone

" I've learned our soldiers are so much like everybody else. They're just put into an extreme situation. "

Mary Gauthier

Just

Much

" I'm grateful to songwriting and recovery to bringing me to a place of peace. "

Mary Gauthier

Peace

Place

" I would make a terrible soldier, because I don't follow orders. "

Mary Gauthier

Because

Terrible

" There's a lot of vulnerability in songs - I'm not talking about pop songs - from people that are in the art of songwriting more than the commercial enterprise of it. "

Mary Gauthier

Art

People

" I don't play everything I write. I mean, everything I write is not that good. I bring out into the world the ones I think that are really worthy of an audience's attention. "

" I keep seeing the headline on articles that says something like 'Mary Gauthier Helping Our Veterans.' It's troubling - and it's condescending. Whatever I'm doing as a songwriter to help them tell their stories, they're giving it back to me double, triple, quadruple. "

Mary Gauthier

Doing

Back

" I always knew I was going to make a record called 'The Foundling.' Since I picked up a guitar, I knew it. "

Mary Gauthier

Knew

Since

" I think it's a stereotype that soldiers don't talk, because my experience is that they will talk if they are met with empathy and no judgment. "